09/16/2026
Everyone welcome Elvira aka Dunnit Queen of the Night! I have been anxiously and stressfully awaiting this little girl for a long time now! This calf may only be hours old, but her story is already a long one. I promise it's a good one, but kind of a tear jerker!
This story starts out on September 2nd of 2017. I was 17 years old. My favorite heifer/pet Summer aka Toad (don't ask why we called her that it just stuck) was heavily pregnant and due to have her first baby any day now. I awoke just as the sun was cresting the horizon to a panicked mooing coming from the pasture and I knew it was my Toad. I lept out of bed sporting my John Deere pj's and went racing down the stairs announcing to the whole house "Toad is having her baby, I've got to go help her!" I went whizzing past my dad who smiled and rolled his eyes, as I'm sure he was just trying to have a peaceful early breakfast. Running out the front door and through the pasture gates I could just barely see Toad hiding behind our cedar trees. When I finally got to her I realized all my prayers had been answered. She had the calf all by herself and it was the most beautiful dun heifer I had ever seen, I named her Luna. Luna grew up to be just like Toad, opinionated, stubborn, and sassy, but so loving. Those two were my pride and joy, and were extremely successful going across the country from show to show.
4 years later, when I was in college I got a phone call from my dad telling me to come home immediately, Toad was in a bad way. She had calved a few days earlier and unknown to us, the calf had put a slight tear in her uterus and had caused her to slowly internally bleed out. There was no saving her. When I got there it began to storm and I saw her laying flat out in the now muddy pasture. I ran to be with her in her final moments, placed her head on my lap and told her that everything thing was going to be ok, that there was a special pasture in heaven for great cows like her. Not long after she was gone.
While I dearly missed Toad I still had a piece of her in Luna. Luna made the trip with me the next year 3 hrs south down to Carlinville right before my husband and I got married. She loved the farm we built together and loved meeting all of the new people we brought over for farm tours. But sadly, her story came to another tragic end. One day I noticed she was very slow coming up for feed, which wasn't like her at all. Her back was hunched up and she was obviously in pain. I put her in a stall to keep a close eye on her and day after day it only got worse. I tried everything to make her better from pain killers to therapy, but nothing helped. It got so bad that we had to pick her hind end up with the tractor as she couldn't seem to use it any more. The next day I knew it was too much for her, she had always been a fighter, but she had no fight left. I called my dad (who is a vet)and he agreed it was time I asked him where I should aim to make it quick and painless. But I couldn't do it. Every time I looked in her eyes I saw those hopes and dreams being ripped away from me. I felt the joy and excitement for the future I had felt the day she was born 7 years before slipping into nothing. I called my husband and asked him to come home and help me. I sobbed as I gave her her last scoop of grain, and begged Adam to please not miss and make it quick. I could see the devastation in his eyes as well and felt horrible for asking him to carry this task out, but I just couldn't do it. I kissed her on the forehead and walked to the other side of the pasture. As the shot rang out my heart shattered into pieces. For a long while after I had contemplated just getting out of cattle, I couldn't take any more and was just constantly worried that some other fluke thing would happen and would rip everything I had worked for away. But I gave all my worries to God and carried on.
A few months before Luna had passed, I got her eggs collected and implanted with Daggets Shay. Which was quite a feat in itself. Something went wrong when they were freezing the embryos, and I went from 27 down to 5. But some is better than none! We just needed a cow to put them in, and I had the perfect plan; I had Jenny! Jenny was a cross bred bottle calf that I raised from my husband's herd after she lost her mama. She was the first cow on our new place and we grew very attached to her. We bred Jenny to ESF Zo's Magic Warrior and she blessed us with a little black heifer. It was a test for Jenny's mothering abilities to see if she was fit to carry embryos, and she passed with flying colors! Jenny took the embryo on the first try, and was babied for the first few months to assure that she wouldn't lose it. 9 months went by and that leads us to where we are today. That is her story of hope. I have no idea what the future holds for this little girl but I am praying it is a bright, happy, and healthy one.
